Hmm, read this back at the beginning of August, only now putting up. And I have another 8 history plays to do the same with, alongside reading a wonderful Atheistmas present – “The Great White Bard,” which I will be reading and blogging. You’d think I would know about striking while the irony is hot…
Year written: 1595 (?)
Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): Uncertainties around who would be the next king – Bess wasn’t getting any younger, and had no offspring.
Plot in a paragraph: Richard II is a fop, obsessed with the Look of being king without the interest – or ability – in actually doing the job. (Thank goodness people like that never get near the heights of power in modern managed democracies, eh?). He fucks around and then finds out, thanks to pissing off a powerful noble, Bolingbroke who (spoilers!) becomes King Henry IV.
How fast and loose with “The Truth”, historically speaking? Shakespeare’s Richard II-Myth or Reality ?
Things that worked well: All of it – this is good stuff
Things that didn’t work well: nah, it was all good
Favourite character: Hard to like, but Richard was very well drawn…
Words I learnt:
| Word | Definition |
| gage | Gage pledge, challenge [usually, a glove or gauntlet thrown down]. |
| lour | Lour frown, scowl, look dark and threatening |
| gloze | Gloze – expound, comment on, give a commentary |
| kern | Kern – lightly armed Irish foot-soldier |
| distrained | Distrain – seize (someone’s property) in order to obtain payment of rent or other money owed. |
| signories | Signories 1. another term for seigniory.2. Historical the governing body of a medieval Italian republic. |
| imprese | Imprese An impresa (plural imprese) is a variant of the badge which became particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. |
| appeach | Appeach – 1. obsolete : to bring a charge against : accuse 2. obsolete : to cast aspersions on intransitive verb obsolete : to bring accusation |
| seely | Seely – The meaning of SEELY is pitiable especially because of weak physical or mental condition : frail. |
Lines worth knowing:
| Act scene lines | Character | Lines | Comment |
| Act 1, scene 1 | Richard II | In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire. | |
| Act 1, scene 1 | Mowbray | The bitter clamor of two eager tongues, | |
| Act 1, scene 1 | Mowbray | My dear dear lord,The purest treasure mortal times affordIs spotless reputation; that away,Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. | |
| Act 1 scene 2 | Duchess | Call it not patience, Gaunt. It is despair.In suff’ring thus thy brother to be slaughtered,Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee. | |
| Act 1 scene 3 | Mowbray | I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,Too far in years to be a pupil now.What is thy sentence then but speechless death,Which robs my tongue from breathing nativebreath? | |
| Act 1 scene 3 | Bolingbroke | The clogging burden of a guilty soul. | |
| Act 1 scene 3 | Gaunt and Bolingbroke | GAUNT What is six winters? They are quickly gone.BOLINGBROKE To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten. | |
| Act 2, scene 1 | York | YORK Vex not yourself nor strive not with your breath,For all in vain comes counsel to his ear. | |
| Act 2, scene 1 | Gaunt | this sceptered isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by Nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wallOr as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands,This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, thisEngland, | |
| Act 2, scene 1 | Gaunt | That England that was wont to conquer othersHath made a shameful conquest of itself.Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,How happy then were my ensuing death! | |
| Act 2 scene 1 | York | You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,You lose a thousand well-disposèd hearts,And prick my tender patience to those thoughtsWhich honor and allegiance cannot think. | |
| Act 2 scene 1 | Willoughby | And daily new exactions are devised, | |
| Act 2 scene 1 | Ross | We see the very wrack that we must suffer,And unavoided is the danger nowFor suffering so the causes of our wrack. | |
| Act 2 scene 2 | Bushy | Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadowsWhich shows like grief itself but is not so;For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears,Divides one thing entire to many objects,Like perspectives, which rightly gazed uponShow nothing but confusion, eyed awryDistinguish form. | |
| Act 2 scene 2 | BUSHY Despair not, madam.QUEEN Who shall hinder me?I will despair and be at enmityWith cozening hope. He is a flatterer,A parasite, a keeper-back of death,Who gently would dissolve the bands of lifeWhich false hope lingers in extremity. | ||
| Act 2 scene 2 | Green | GREEN Alas, poor duke, the task he undertakesIs numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry.Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever. | |
| Act 2 scene 3 | York | YORK It may be I will go with you; but yet I’ll pause,For I am loath to break our country’s laws.Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.Things past redress are now with me past care. | |
| Act 2, 3 | Bolingbroke | Whilst you have fed upon my seigniories,Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,From my own windows torn my household coat,Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign,Save men’s opinions and my living blood,To show the world I am a gentleman. | Deforestation!! |
| Act 3 scene 2 | Salisbury | O, call back yesterday, bid time return,And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men.Today, today, unhappy day too late,Overthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; | Yeah, good luck with that! See that Paul Kelly song… |
| Act 3 scene 2 | Carlisle | CARLISLE My lord, wise men ne’er sit and wail their woes,But presently prevent the ways to wail.To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,And so your follies fight against yourself. | “man up, mofos” |
| Act 5 scene 1 | Richard | Forwhy the senseless brands will sympathizeThe heavy accent of thy moving tongue,And in compassion weep the fire out,And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,For the deposing of a rightful king. | |
| Act 5 scene 1 | Richard | Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithalThe mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,The time shall not be many hours of ageMore than it is ere foul sin, gathering head,Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,Though he divide the realm and give thee half,It is too little, helping him to all.He shall think that thou, which knowest the wayTo plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,Being ne’er so little urged another way,To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.The love of wicked men converts to fear,That fear to hate, and hate turns one or bothTo worthy danger and deservèd death. | |
| Act 5, scene 3 | York | Forget to pity him, lest thy pity proveA serpent that will sting thee to the heart. | |
| Act 5, scene 5 | Richard | I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; | |
| Act 5, scene 5 | Bolingbroke (now King Henry IV) | Lords, I protest my soul is full of woeThat blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.Come mourn with me for what I do lament,And put on sullen black incontinent.I’ll make a voyage to the Holy LandTo wash this blood off from my guilty hand. | Yeah, sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself |
Marc’s entirely subjective verdict and score out of 5 bards (ymmv): 4
Will I be tracking down movies of this? : yes,
How far would I travel to see a good production of this? An hour?
Limericks
Richard says God made him king
And sends young Bolly on the wing
But Bolly gets around
And Richard he does hound
And Bolly – as Henry – gets bling
and
Young Richard thinks God has sent him
The pomp and the power -it’s bent him
With barely a stroke
Comes Bolingbroke
Whose flunkies “independently” dent him.
and
Richard as the king is man-ish
And solving a duel with a banish
But the son of John Gaunt
With insults doth taunt
And Richard’s past friends do vanish
UPDATE
What other people think:
xxx
Books/chapters/articles I might try to track down:
Shakespeare’s Richard II-Myth or Reality ?
Podcasts and their contents
| Date | Podcast | Episode title | Topic | Length | Score out of ten (ymmv) | Comments |
| No Holds Bard | ||||||
| Approaching Shakespeare | ||||||
| Not true but useful | ||||||
| Bard Files | ||||||
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